Parenting College Kids Revised

The most recent installment of The Real Life Survival Guide was about parenting college age children (young adults). 

I’m not there...not yet. 

I know from personal experience that not everybody is ready for college right out of high school. Putting too much pressure on an 18 year old can be harmful. This can the be the first real lesson for a parent to let your child find his or her way. That does not mean cutting them loose.

I know I caused a lot of consternation for my parents when I went off to college. But, that was because I wasn't ready. I went in with the preconceived notion that I was going to fail. So, I did. I was immature. I was an emotional basket case. I careened from unbridled freedom to experimentation and, I set myself up to fail.

Me after going back to school.

When I dropped out, I was prepared for the worst. Hadn't I wasted my parent’s money? Hadn't I disappointed them? The answer was yes. But, my parents showed me much more depth and understanding. They were there to support me. They did not come down like a ton of bricks. They encourage me and waited for me to find my way.  

They were there for me when I took my first steps back to advance my education. 

I took a few courses at community college first. I wanted to see if I could cut it. I applied myself and the grades reflected my efforts. I convinced myself I could handle work at the University. I took the plunge. I was ready. I knew where I wanted to focus my studies.

I graduated with honors.  The key...I was ready. My mother took one last crack. She said, "It's about time." Then she laughed.

You can hear the Real Live Survival Guide on-line or on WNPR, Sunday at 4:30pm.

Is video the new radio star?

Inside Radio posted an article today about the importance of Video on a radio station's website. The article focuses on data gathered by comScore.

A new report from comScore shows that’s a smart strategy. The U.S. online video market attracts an average of 75 million viewers every day.  And content providers are doing a better job of monetizing those views. The gap between the number of video ad views and content views is narrowing, comScore data shows. The percentage of videos accompanied by a video ad jumped from just 14% in 2011 to nearly 23% in 2012.

Some public radio stations are on-board with this. Back in 2006 we did some early dabbling in video for radio at WNPR. We recorded and posted  the Steve Davis Quintet at Sweet Jane's in Hartford. It now has over 7000 views. WNPR's offerings are much more robust. WNPRVideo's Channel has 32 videos. The most watched is Kate Callahan and Two Doors with over 12,000 views.

WUMB919 (I had a cup of coffee with this station.) has 37 videos. Most of the views are in the 100's. The most recent video was posted about nine months ago.

WNYC has over 1500 videos. WNYC's Street Shots: Bruce Gilden, was posted about four years ago. It's a good example of the long tail of appealing on-line postings with over 600,000 views.

There are many more videos cross linked to each of these stations. An example of that cross linkage are videos posted by Colin McEnroe and the Real Life Survival Guide.

Still not convinced? YouTube is the second most utilized search engine behind Google. The platform is a must for your content.  A robust video strategy is going to bring more visitors to your station's website and will make more users aware of your content and your station.

And finally...According to the article from Inside Radio, advertisers (underwriters) are willing to pay higher cost per thousand rates for on-line video content and ads.

Real Life Survival Guide and Civics

At a recent recording session of the Real Life Survival Guide the importance of civics was discussed. (The program will air in a week or two.)  Voting is often touted as a civic duty. The issue of the right to vote and, who has the right to vote, is a big issue in this election.

Voter ID laws are seen by conservatives as a way of preventing voter fraud. On the other hand, actual cases of voter fraud are scarce. The Brennan Center for Justice, www.brennancenter.org, a nonpartisan public law and policy institute affiliated with the New York University School of Law, has studied the issue. They say the issue is a myth.   If you care to read more...go to the Truth About Voter Fraud.

Why the concern? This is going to be a close election. The losers in a close election usually claim widespread voter fraud. As the Brennan Center report points out, the allegations about widespread fraud do not pan out. 

Now there are reports that an offshoot of the Tea Party is recruiting a million volunteers to show up at polling places in minority neighborhoods this November to monitor those who show up to vote. The group calls itself "True the Vote." Common Cause released a report called, "Bullies at the Ballot Box." In it they quote "True the Vote" as rallying volunteers to block  “illegal alien vote” and “the food stamp army.” Their stated goal is to make the experience of voting “like driving and seeing the police behind you.”

This is an issue that is immediate in Worcester, Massachusetts. There are allegations of intimidation at the polls during the primary in Worcester last week. The Election Commission is set to discuss the issue at a meeting June 10, 2012. In an article in the Worcester Telegram there are allegations "that some observers engaged in voter intimidation and voter suppression with their actions, which included challenging the legality of some voters and giving orders to poll workers. There were also reports that some poll observers were illegally recording conversations between voters and poll workers."

As officials in Worcester say, the rules need to made clear and laws against illegal tactics need to be enforced.

Real Life Survival Guide (RLSG) at IKEA

Last Sunday Bruce Barber's Real Life Survival Guide (RLSG) went to IKEA where the running joke was "Get a room!"

If your think about it they have about 60 of them on display starting at about $2000.

The topics discussed included Spring Cleaning, Dumpster Parties, breaking old Food habits which degenerated into a lengthy discussion on the virtues of bacon, how to fight spring allergies and, making time for families.

The Real Life Survival Guide isn't your typical public radio show. It's a mix of good table conversation, The Kitchen Sisters and a touch of the Algonquin Round Table. The conversations do not get contentious. There's a mutual respect among the guests.

Should the conversations have more depth or controversy? Maybe. One of the core values of the program is to have fun during the conversation. You can have some influence over the guide by taking the Barber Poll. While on the website, make suggestions and comments. We're trying to build an online community.

IKEA treated us very well. They put the show in one of the room displays near the entrance and fed us with items from their food court. We didn't get any Swedish Meatballs but, the Gravlax were delicious.

The program airs Sundays at 4:30pm. You can listen anytime on line.

The Platform Matters

I recently sent out a post about WOSU's decision to sell its AM signal. WOSU had recently transitioned its news audience to 89.7FM. The change was made possible after the station had purchased another FM signal and moved classical programming to that signal.

The transition to FM for the news programming was, unfortunately, 25 years late. The radio platform preferred by the Boomers (NPR's prime market segment) is FM radio.

I'm spending some time helping with the production of the Real Life Survival Guide. One of the goals of the program is to continue the conversation on-line. We were frustrated by the scant participation through the program's website. (Of course, there's that scary moment when we thought nobody cared.) Through the help of our web guy, Gary Choronzy, "the new RLSG / Facebook comment integration is now live. what this does is synchronize site comments with FB conversation threads. to see it in action, see Bruce's latest post:"  http://reallifesurvivalguide.com/2011/12/09/whats-the-best-way-to-get-started-on-an-exercise-routine/

We're trying to increase awareness of the program and increase participation by utilizing Facebook...the platform used by most of our listeners.

Hawk n Dove Will Close in DC/NPR

Often what we talk about on the Real Life Survival Guide is the loss of local, family businesses. What replaces them is the paint by the numbers chain establishments. It's a theme that has come up more than once. In fact we talked about it again at today's recording session at Manjares in the Westville section of New Haven. The local establishments help give us a sense of place... a sense of community. I don't think we get that same sense from the national chains. I felt that loss when one of my favorite spots in Milwaukee closed down. Kalt's had been open for about 140 years when it closed. It's a place I kept going back to because of a sense of connection.  I still miss it.
Audie Cornish reports for NPR

Popular D.C. Bar To Close Doors | Minnesota Public Radio News

A Sense of Community

I was asked to participate in the discussion for the Real Life Survival Guide taping yesterday. 

The question was posed by Bruce Barber, "What's an important lesson you've learned or story you've heard - whether in your day to day existence, your job, or a hobby or personal passion - that you think would help other people?"

I chose to focus on an experience from my teen years. I grew up about a half-mile from a velodrome. We used to go to the bike races there in the summer. One summer the Olympic trials were held there along with the national championships. One of the announcements at the race mentioned that the Milwaukee Wheelmen had community rides at the track and in the park a couple of times a week. Charged up by the races, I decided to go.

One thing led to another and I started to race my stock bike. Through the associations and friendships developed at these rides; a local bike shop owner agreed to build my fits racing bike. I started to win a few races and a couple of the older riders took an interest in me and became my coaches.

There was at least one race a week between the tracks in in Milwaukee, Kenosha and Northbrook, Illinois. The races weren't really Olympic competition. We raced in packs on these ovals. Sometimes there were as many as 30 riders on the track at one time. It was a cross between roller derby and NASCAR.  There were plenty of heated rivalries and crashes. Because of the competition, riders were drawn from all over the country. Some of them were world class athletes. 

There was no way I could compete with these athletes head on. Through my coaches we developed a strategy. Since not much happened in these races (the sprints) until the bell lap, we came up with a plan that made me competitive. A velodrome is a banked oval. I was able to use that to my advantage by swinging to the top of the track headed into the first turn. Then, I cranked into a sprint in the second turn using gravity to increase my speed as I swung down to the inside track ahead of the pack. If it worked, I got a jump on the competition heading into turn three and four. There was always a sprint to the finish down the final straight, but I would often have the advantage of being the front runner. It didn't always work because the competition was lot bigger, stronger and faster than I was.

It was great for my self-esteem as a teenager. Winning was fun too. But, since I understood where I stood in the competitive order of things (there was no way I was going to be national champ or make the Olympic Team) I became a good winner. There was humbleness to it. 

I enjoyed the competition. I also valued camaraderie and the friendships. I belonged. It was a shared experience. There was a real sense of community. It was my first meaningful lesson in the importance of community. 

That sense of community and belonging is one of the key findings of Audience 98. Public Radio listeners expressed they are a part of a larger public radio audience. It is a shared experience. It is one of deciding factors in listener support. 

So much of our time today is spent in isolation. It's easy to spend four or five hours on-line or on mobile media not really interacting with the people around us. Because of this are we losing that sense of community? The thinking of the panelists at yesterday's taping was there will always be a need for community.  

I hope they're right.

Real Life Survival Guide - Crowd Sourcing

Last Thursday I was given the privilege of sitting in with a taping of the Real Life Survival Guide. The Real Life Survival Guide is "a radio show (and web community) dedicated to answering questions through a series of conversations – with a diverse group of people across a variety of media channels: a blog, an online forum, a public radio show, and social networks like Facebook and Twitter." It's also the brainchild of Bruce Barber. I'm helping to produce the show.


Thursday's conversation was populated by a cross section of New Haven are intelligentsia.  The Gang of Provocateurs, as Bruce and co-host Duo Dickinson like to call them were Christine Ohlman, Mark Oppenheimer, Danielle Gianetti, and Matt Scott. The host and “Guest Provocateur”, Carey Savona of Heirloom at The Study Hotel.


Christine Ohlman is vocalist for the Saturday Night Live Band but, that really doesn't do justice to her resume. Her bio says she Teased her blonde hair into a beehive in honor of Ronnie Spector and never looked back, picking up a guitar and forging a career as a songwriter in the process. Mark Oppenheimer writes a bi-weekly column about religion for the New York Times and, "and I am a writer for The New York Times Magazine, Slate, Mother Jones, Tablet, The Forward, and many other publications. I also enjoy publishing personal essays and book reviews. I am an editor of The New Haven Review and an occasional commentator on NPR." Danielle Gianetti owns one of the best places for a cocktail in New Haven: 116 Crown with her husband John. Matt Scott is Meteorologist for WPLR he was the weekend weatherman until recently for WTNH. 


Eventually there will be about 20 Provocateurs posing and looking for answers to questions about everyday life. Where are they coming from? Connections. It's like networking which is something I've become very familiar with in the past two years since being laid-off by Connecticut Public Broadcasting. It's how I met Bruce. In public radio we like to call it Crowdsourcing. 


There's a more precise definition about what the Real Life Survival Guide is trying to do. According the the Website Crowdsourcing.org it is Collective Knowledge - Development of knowledge assets or information resources from a distributed pool of contributors. Crowdsourcing is used to develop, aggregate, and share knowledge and information through open Q&A, user-generated knowledge systems, news, citizen journalism, and forecasting.


The next installment is Sunday, July 3rd, at 4:30pm. on WNPR. It will be interesting to listen to the conversation and the stories presented evolve in the coming weeks.